He said he would be there.

And he was. He stayed after she left to go get Zoe, and when Jo got, he wasn't waiting for her in the bedroom, but them in the common area. He was in the kitchen with a brew for her and a sandwich, sippy cup and cut grapes for Zoe. How the hell did he know to cut grapes?

He'd be there. He was there.

Jo thought again about talking to Harry about the responsibilities he was seemingly stepping into. She didn't want to force Harry into a pseudo step-father role, she didn't want to force him into any role, especially by default. It was another thing, a heavy thing, they needed to talk about. When she was his age, she had an infant. It was the hardest thing she had ever done and she was alone. Her intentions for him were to spare him hard things.

Now, at an entirely different stage of life, she had a young child again. Jo was also on her own again.

Except when Harry was in her home. Then she did not feel alone. Not only was he a beautiful, distracting companion for her, he also felt like a partner. He did little things, like running the dishwasher, or anticipating Zoe needing a snack, or taking her to the park, without Jo thinking of it sometimes and certainly without her having to ask.

Selfishly, having him be there for her was so wonderful. Jo imagined it must be what a swallow felt like after it arrived at the cliffs of San Juan Capistrano. Like she had flown for thousands of miles and found a place to rest. The soft place, the partnership, he already offered when he was in her home was a gift she didn't even know how to thank him for.

It was also a gift Jo felt like she needed to reject in some way. Harry was so young, and one day he would make somebody, some lucky man or woman, an excellent partner. Thinking about Harry being happy with anybody but her, meeting unacknowledged needs and slotting into someone's vulnerable places, hurt like bending a nail back. Sudden and burning pain and she didn't even want to think about it. Because, if he wanted to be here, she wanted him to be here, with her, even more. She just wasn't sure how long she could allow that. They could spend years together she supposed before he would need to move on to somebody more suitable without missing any opportunities. The way he was already engraved on her heart would only get deeper though, and then, if he decided to leave for those exact opportunities, Jo would be irrevocably marked by him.

Jo was older though, and was probably thinking farther down the road. He was happy and he had told her, in love. She could admit to herself, she loved him too. And she was trying to decide if she loved him enough to make him go or too much to send him away.

It caused an ache in her belly, a pleasant emptiness to watch him with Zoe. Harry was so good, so natural and intuitive and patient with her. He was going to be an amazing dad. But she could not allow him to do what she'd had to do. She wanted to spare him it.

It was already to late to entirely spare him.

Because he was here. And she was going to let him be. Jo didn't want to stop it anymore, and was too tired after tonight's emotional conversation to bring it up, so she let him feed Zoe and rounded up her sleepy girl from his arms and enjoyed the kiss he pressed to Zoe head and the squeeze he gave her hand.

When Jo came down 20 minutes later she pushed open the door to her room to the sweetest sight she had possibly ever seen. Harry was already topless and was pushing his track pants down his thighs. The black fabric pooled around his feet and Jo wanted to dive in.

She closed the door behind her and walked up behind him,wrapped her arms around his torso and kissed the depression between his shoulders.

"Hi." She murmured and kept kissing over his back. She wished she was a little taller so she could reach the tops of his shoulder and his itsy bitsy earlobes. Jo felt overcome by affection for him and wanted to press her lips to all of his parts.

"Hello, Jo." She could see the cheesy grin twisting his voice into a smile while he caught her hands and returned her affection, planting a kiss in each of her palms, and nipping her fingertips.

"Are you tired? Ready for bed?" Jo tried to have a neutral tone, but she could hear the hope in her voice despite her efforts.

"I'm exhausted yes, and I'm ready for bed." He turned in the circle of her arms like the ballerina in a jewelry box, the surprise and aplomb, "But I don't want to sleep, not yet." He caught her chin and lifted it up.

Jo's lips parted a half inch in ready, expecting the kiss his hand on her face usually signaled. Her eyes had fallen closed as well. She stood poised ready to be dived into, but there was no splash. She cracked her eyes and found him staring at her.

"What're you doing?" Her voice was already a little drunk on the green fairy of his eyes.

"I'm memorizing you." He didn't explain further.

"I thought you had finished my face?" She wanted him to blink, no one looked at her this long. It was becoming uncomfortable for her.

"God finished your face." His thumb began a slow drag up her cheekbone and back down. "I finished the piece I put you in. I'm memorizing your face today, because it looks like surrender, to us." His other hand caught her palm and he brought their joined hands up to shoulder level. "And I'm afraid you're gonna change on me again."

"What do you mean?" Jo asked.

"Did you know your face is like glass?" He waited for response, but kept looking at her, her brows and eyes. "It shows your emotions, I can feel when you've shuttered yourself. And it hurts. Right now though, you're a looking glass, open to me as I am to you, a mirror of my feelings. I just want to remember when you run from me again. So I have a reason to chase you."

"Why is this a reason?" She found herself asking, because she needed to know why her current expression had stopped him before their headlong tumble into the sheets.

"How do I look?" He asked.

Jo tried to stop feeling insecure under his scrutiny long enough to look at him. His brow was clear and smooth, his eyes glistened and though he was not smiling, he looked, "You look happy, Harry."

That brought a smile up and he finally married their mouths and Jo found herself breathing him in, through her nose and mouth and pores. She opened herself up entirely to this union, and she hoped it wasn't as transitory as he expected it to be.

Jo wanted him to be wrong.

She wanted to prove him wrong.

She could be as open as him, so she opened her mouth to his kiss, her arms to his body, her heart to his feelings, and her mind to their possibility.

The shift was clear. Harry groaned as Jo went liquid, but slowly, like glass. She molded to his shape.

He pulled back to look at her once more before hoisting her up by bracketing his arms under her ass and laying her back on the bed. She expected more kissing, but instead he pushed her shirt up her torso to where it bunched under her breasts. When he found the white sports bra there he unzipped it and opened it up to his gaze. Jo let him look until she felt bigger, than her skin, than love. She made no motion to close her arms or cover herself.

He looked a long time and she felt her pulse increase in the bends and crooks of all of her joints from the anticipation, but especially the femoral artery, like it was working hard to pump the blood to warm her cunt and get it ready for him.

She was ready, and her belly jumped when his gaze moved over it, down from her breasts. Jo was dying for touch. When his hands finally found her, he didn't caress her, but instead gripped the folded waist and of her house pants and pulled them down her legs. He smiled a little when he found her once again without knickers, and she raised her eyebrows and her hips just a fraction in offering.

She expected him to take his welcome, but instead, he removed her shirt and bra, again without caress. Jo found herself running her arms up and down the bed, like the angels she made during the first snowfall with her kids, to get some sensation. Why wasn't he touching her.

"Har-Harry?" She could hear the blood in her voice.

"Ughhh," he responded eloquently and plunged his hand down his boxers to squeeze himself. That move had become familiar to Jo and was incendiary. The fire bomb was unnecessary, as she was already alight. She reached for him and said his name again, but he still didn't reach for her, but pushed his boxers down.

Once naked, he finally lay his hands on her. He caught her wrists and brought them back to the bed, looking at her, where she lay wanton, panting his name.

"Here." Was all he said, it was his first word since he had asked her to look at him, so she listened.

Jo hoped he would dive in, but instead he traced his hands over her. His fingers found the bowl of her pelvis and she quivered under the light touch, when his fingers ran over her pulse points just next to her groomed thatch of hair, she yelped and rocked side to side. All of her nerve ending screamed at the simple touch. Harry dipped a finger into her belly button and she shivered in delight like she found a cup of tea on a frigid day.

He continued caressing her torso and ran his hands up to her shoulders, just glancing her breasts and completely ignoring her nipples. She whined his name and couldn't stop herself from touching him when he brought the stubble of his jaw, sparse but coarse, to the ridge of her ribs. Those bones caught on fire, and the cool of his tongue licking the rising ridge of her breast made her hands grip his hair and say his name.

Jo's fingers pulled at his long locks and tried to drag his head so his mouth would center over her aching nipples. Harry shook his head, but didn't remove her hands so Jo decided not to try her luck. He continued sucking kisses and licking the under flesh of her breast until she was saying please like a song on repeat.

He pulled his mouth away with a lick to her peaked nipple that brought a violent breath out of her mouth, and she arched her back up to kiss him, but he turned her over instead and smoothed his long body up the length of her. The full skin to skin contact made her moan like he had touched more sensitive skin than her back.

Harry slotted his weeping erection between the cheeks of her ass and rutted over the plush skin he loved so much until Jo splayed her legs to get friction on her clit from the bedsheets.

Harry closed her legs immediately and pointed his dick between her legs and fucked the empty space between her thighs. Jo could feel the wetness of her pussy transfer to him with each pass. Harry kissed over her shoulders and she sighed in relief. When he bit the crest of her trapezius and his tip caught her swollen hood she screamed into the bedsheets on an orgasm.

Was that possible? He'd kissed her back and glanced her clit, only.

"Holy fuck, Har-Harry, please?!" Jo convulsed beneath him and his cheeky grin could be felt on the side of her face.

She turned into kiss him and he finally connected their mouths and gave her the tongue she had been trying to get for the last 20 minutes while he wound her up like a toy. She was at the last gear and needed to spin joyously out of control.

Harry rolled off her back and she missed the warmth immediately, he lay beside her and kissed her deeply, coaxing her tongue out of her mouth into his and stopping to run his chin against hers every once in a while.

Her leg came up to his hip and she pushed him onto his back and ran her hips over his dick ravenously while she feasted on his mouth, she was out of her head. Jo pulled back to look over his long body and his cock flexed at her. She slinked down and spread his legs to get between them.

"Get my hair please?" Harry smiled at her politeness and used two hands to gather her strands into a ponytail before transferring all of it to one hand.

Jo got her mouth around him and it was his turn to make desperate sounds while she licked him from the creased skin in the center of his balls to his tip.

"Jo!" He whisper shouted and yanked her hair lightly. She liked that, so she did again until her name was spilling out like a waterfall and she put him properly in her mouth and took him down to her tonsils. He used the grip he had on her hair to direct her and Jo was panting from the heat and lack of oxygen before he pulled her off. She slid up his happy trail and they shuddered when she brought her wet mouth to his. The kiss was more glancing licks and heavy breaths, but they kept the connection until they had calmed a bit.

"God, I need you, I'm so empty!" Jo didn't even mean to say, and Harry used his hands to push her down. The angle was right, or she was sodden, and the tip found her place and slid in until the strong flare of the tip that had escaped his foreskin stopped the progress.

Harry gripped her hips and pushed her down and over his erect cock until she had to sit up to take the last bit. "Oh!" She squeezed his hand when he was seated where they pressed into her flesh. He used his hands to rock her over her lap. Jo tried to increase the pace multiple times until she finally leaned forward and kept his slow pace, but added a full circle to the stroke, up towards his chin and orbiting back down to his knees.

When he was gripping the bedsheets and her hips from the slow motion, she sat up and leaned back to clutch his knees. She kept up the centrifugal force but they both looked down to watch him come in and out of her, glistening.

"Fuck, I'm gonna come, baby."

"Then come baby!" Jo granted, but Harry shook his head and sat up abruptly nearly unseating her. He pushed her back instead with his forward momentum and pulled out. He wasted no time, he seemed to have spent all his patience earlier, and got himself situated between her legs.

"God Jo- you're so swollen, I swear you're like a ripe peach in my hand." He cupped her overflowing vulva and slid three fingers in with ease. That sponges spot that made her writhe was thick and juicy under the pads of his fingertips. He massaged over it and put his mouth to her. He licked up from where her wetness pooled to the nub at the center of her pussy. When he hit it, flicked his tongue over it, Jo bit into palm to quell the scream. "And in my mouth," he looked up and way he looked from between her twitching thighs, his hair was wild, his mouth was wet, and his eyes were open and full of love, Jo didn't know why they called it lovemaking so well until that moment. Holy, their edges, their meeting, was holy.

Jo wasn't even sure she needed more head to come. His face might be enough. But Harry seemed to disagree. His tongue and lips and teeth found her where she was empty and waiting. The licks he applied, with the little flick at the end coupled with the rub inside had her clutching her bedding or biting her palms. When he put his mouth over her whole hood, sucked it into his mouth and licked her until she screamed his name into the back of her teeth, she realized she was far from done.

Jo could hear herself begging for penetration. "God, I'm so empty, get inside me now. I need to feel every inch of you lover. Please. Please. Now, please."

Harry stood by the side of the bed then and dragged her down to him. He flipped her onto her stomach and brought her knee up and around his hip. The heavy strokes he gave her had then both moaning.

"Jo, can I come? Where can I come? When can I come? You feel so good, I never want to be apart from you."

"Give me one more, please, I feel like I could never stop coming right now. Baby!"

Harry pulled out then and flipped her over and pushed her up the mattress to the pillows. "Hold on, I need to slide in." And he gingerly went to notch himself into her wet place. "Hold on, you're too tight, need to slide back in careful." He warned when jo flexed her hips like a v-8 piston.

"I'm not, I can feel I'm dripping, you don't need to be gentle. Come on Harry, be with me. Close as you can be."

Harry gripped her thigh to get it over his arm and started to duck into her slow and deep.

"You're so far, baby, I want to see your eyes."

"Yeah, Jo, I love your face, especially when you come babe." He leaned his chest down to her and held her gaze, while he tweaked her clit like a guitar string.

It took two strums over her nub. Harry filled her opening mouth with his tongue to quell her scream.

She was right, once she started she couldn't stop, minute moves on his part sent her quaking again and Harry's brow was tight under the pressure she was giving his dick.

"I'm gonna come.Can I come?" Harry groaned against her mouth while he painted.

"God please! I need you to fill me up, love it, can almost feel it."

His orgasm took her back under and even just his presence, filling her, hit her g-spot again and again with every breath.

Once the paroxysm subsided, Harry pulled back and began kissing over her mouth and neck and shoulders.

"Oh baby, you're so amazing." Jo slipped out while he wilted inside of her. She looked down to his eyes. Right now they looked like a river she tried to paint once, but couldn't capture, because the reality was to rich to confine to canvas, shades of murky green and clear crystal.

Harry hugged her to him, "I— I, you—I need a shower, want to join me?"

Jo managed a nod over her shaky breaths, her mouth followed his final kiss. She felt paralyzed there, dripping on the bed. She was done, head over heels. He was more than a lover, bigger than a friend, he wanted to be a partner. Jo needed and wanted him more each moment.

Jo couldn't find the energy to come to him. Soon, Harry came back with warm cloth. Jo could barely stand the touch, she was so sensitive, but when he cuddled into her, she was happiest she'd ever been. She rolled her head to the side and looked long at him until he responded and made eye contact.

"I think I love you." She said astonished, but not able to deny it or stop her truth from slipping out.

Harry kissed her forehead. "I know I'm in love with you. But we should talk about it when you aren't boneless."

"That's never, you fucked my bones right out of me." She yawned into his face.

Harry kissed her nose. "Go to sleep and see if you still love me in the morning."

"I will!" She protested into the pillow and nodded off before he could even think to follow her.

Jo couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, but she swore she heard him sigh, "But will you be able to say it?" Into her hair.